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How To Setup A Tor Relays

This is an article about how to set up a Tor relays, you can help people to surf faster anonymous on the internet, to let them hide their own IP address. Some people life in a censored country and can’t enter all the websites they want to view because the government censored them. If you want to help them and you live in an uncensored area you can set up your Vidalia software to use it as a relays.

A Tor relays is different from a bridge relays. Bridge relays are not listed in Tor directory, relays can be an Exit node. An Exit node is the last part of the relays and are listed in the directory. Some people prefer not to be an exit node, the reason is that in some countries running a proxy isn’t legal. Also some Internet Service Providers (ISP) doesn’t like users run a public proxy, it violates their terms of service or simply they don’t allow users to run a public proxy server. They threaten you to disconnect from the internet. All over the world many people using a proxy server and it uses a lot of traffic and bandwidth, so when you start a relays or bridge remember your internet speed will be slower.

Configure a Tor Relays

You can configure Tor in a few steps to let it run as a Relays. First download Tor Vidalia bundle from their website, choose one their available bundles and install it. Start Vidalia and wait till you’re connected to a tor network.

Click on Setup relaying, a new window will open and select Sharing. Choose Relays traffic for Tor network. Fill in the Nickname field the name of your choice, optional you can enter contact info. If you have a NAT IP address on your local network than you have to select Attempt to automatically configure port forwarding. Change the Port default into 1024 on Os X and Linux/Unix. Go to the Bandwidths limits tab and select the speed of your internet connection. Select the Exit policies tab and choose what Internet recourses the users can access using your relays, for a non exit relays uncheck all the services. Go back to the basic settings tab and push the Test button and see if it’s working. don’t forget to restart Vidalia.

You don’t need to leave your computer all the time open, Tor Directory will look if your online or not. Your IP address doesn’t have to be static, you can use also dynamic

If it’s still not working because of the Firewall or router, you will need to create a port forwarding rule in your router. To make your Tor relays users reach you, allow all outgoing connections.